A voter fraud trial for the man who successfully petitioned to get marijuana decriminalized in Ferndale got underway Friday with a prosecutor saying the suspect falsely claimed he lived in Ferndale while residing in Oak Park.

“The Ferndale City Charter says you have to be a registered (voter) in the city” to circulate and submit petitions to get an issue on the city ballot, said Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Jason Pernick.

Andrew Cissell, 25, is charged in the case and also faces a separate trial in April in Oakland County Circuit Court on five felony counts of delivery and manufacture of marijuana.

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Cissell is charged in Ferndale with making a false statement about his legal address on the petitions he turned in to Ferndale City Clerk Cherylinn Brown last July to get the marijuana decriminalization initiative on the Nov. 5, 2013 ballot. The charge is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine.

Ferndale voters approved decriminalizing an ounce or less of marijuana for anyone 21 or older on private property by a 2-1 margin. That law will not change, regardless of the outcome of the voter fraud trial, Pernick said.

Cissell claimed his legal address as his father’s house in Ferndale when he changed his driver license in June. He also used a Ferndale address when he signed the marijuana-petition certificates that were turned over to Brown, she testified.

Cissell’s father, John Cissell, first told police investigators his son hadn’t lived at his house in Ferndale in about three years last September when they got a warrant to search the house and found nothing incriminating there. John Cissell repeated that statement at his son’s trial, which is before Hazel Park 43rd District Judge Charles Goedert.

Defense attorney Lisa Dwyer told jurors in her opening statement that Cissell lived at his father’s Ferndale house until he went to college in 2009, kept all his important papers and belongings there and used the address for official papers, such as tax records and his driver license.

Though records show Cissell owns a house in Oak Park, Dwyer said the house was bought as a fixer-upper and her client was a man of no fixed address who used his father’s house as his main address.

“The law requires you to do a lot of things but it doesn’t require you to have a residence,” she said, adding that state law doesn’t require anyone to live in a community before that person can circulate petitions there.

Brown testified Friday that the voter fraud charge against Cissell stemmed from an Oakland County Sheriff’s Narcotic Enforcement Team case against Cissell. Police said after they raided the house Cissell owns in Oak Park that he appeared to be living there. An undercover detective testified there was a bed, a couch, clothes and fresh food at Cissell’s house on Rensselaer in Oak Park

Police said they also found two safes with nearly two pounds of marijuana, 47 marijuana plants and about 2.8 pounds of drying marijuana at the Oak Park house.

Cissell’s supporters, and his attorney, have suggested Oakland County law enforcement agencies targeted Cissell because they are against more liberal marijuana laws and he drew attention to himself when the media covered his marijuana decriminalization effort in Ferndale.

At an earlier hearing in Cissell’s felony marijuana case, an informant testified he contacted undercover officers after the marijuana decriminalization effort in Ferndale got media attention. The informant said he was looking to pick up some extra money and gain leniency on his probation requirements in a separate marijuana case.

Dwyer said Friday that Cissell’s marijuana decriminalization efforts caught the attention of county law enforcement officials.

Even though there is a medical marijuana law in Michigan, “the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department continues to prosecute people,” Dwyer said.

The trial resumes at 8 a.m. Monday and Cissell is expected to testify before the case goes to the jury.